Cause of 911 outage remains unknown

ST. PAUL — Authorities and telecommunication officials are continuing to investigate what caused a widespread 911 service failure Wednesday in Minnesota, including in Benton, Sherburne and Stearns counties.

The 911 emergency call systems for area counties were not fully restored until after 6 p.m. Wednesday after a statewide outage took them down at about 4:45 p.m.

Affected counties and cities across the state scrambled to broadcast alternative emergency phone numbers through social media and other means during the outage Wednesday.

CenturyLink spokesman Frank Tutalo says that the company is investigating the outage. He did not immediately respond to messages Thursday seeking comment on how many agencies were affected and a timeline for the investigation.

The Federal Communications Commission fined CenturyLink $16 million for a six-hour 911 outage in 2014 that affected 10 million people in Minnesota, Washington and North Carolina.

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